In a meeting yesterday with SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong and MEPs who share his concerns about the transparency of European Commission Expert Groups, Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic gave the go-ahead for further reform of the nine hundred or so groups. The meeting took place on the SP’s initiative and in the wake of pressure from the European Parliament, which earlier this year blocked the groups’ funding. ‘We have already agreed around fifty Expert Groups whose composition continued to appear unbalanced would all be subject to investigation,’ says De Jong. ‘In addition, we are working on a Code of Conduct to put an end to the secrecy attached to participants in the groups. I am further encouraged by the Vice-President’s promise that the reform of the much-talked about Stoiber Group would represent an acid test for the European Commission’s new ways of working.´
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'Let’s hope that the Dutch government doesn’t leave the Palestinians in the lurch this time and votes in favour of raising the status of the Palestinian Authority in the United Nations. Any other vote would be a disgrace for the Netherlands,’ says SP Senator Tiny Kox in the run-up to the approaching vote at the UN on the Palestinian request to be given, as a non-member state, official observer status.